"VALLEY ROUTE" VIIIb (6b)

10 TIMES ON THE SHARP END

Unburdened by prejudice and the weight of legends. Kristýnka simply saw this crack in a photo one day, when she was flipping through a guidebook in winter. “A beautiful line down the centre of the wall. That line alone was enough to make me want to look into it so badly,” she describes. She didn’t even look at the difficulty, and the very next season, she and a friend went to try it.

Her first visit gave her a hard time, but she managed to fight her way up the route AF (all free) style. “I found it so hard, I couldn’t move for about an hour after I reached the top.” The famous wide crack on Hláska now had a black mark in her memory, but she continued to successfully tackle different sizes of cracks, so we pitched her on behalf of the eMontana editorial team to see if she would dare to attempt a red point, with the added pressure of our cameras.

Kristýnka “Kyra” Kwasniaková didn’t need too much persuading, and so we went to Teplice in September 2024. According to our information, this climb had only one free female ascent: Aja Bedrníková climbed it in one go – even in a tank top. Hats off to that. The route will soon celebrate its 70th birthday, so a female ascent, and an red point one at that, occurs as often as Halley’s Comet (next time in 2061; author’s note). In other words — we’re very happy and view it as an honour to have been there… And Kristýnkas’s performance made it seem like a doddle. You can only find out what it’s really like when you go out on your own on the sharp end.

By the way, when Kristýnka first tried the “Valley Route” on Hláska (Watch Tower), it was only her tenth time out on the sandstones. She started with the classic “Old Route” V on King’s Tower (coincidentally on the day of the centenary, author’s note), continued with the “Policka” VII on Castle Tower, and then had a first repeat of the off-width “For Princesses” VIIc (6a), for example.

THE FIRST ASCENT AND A LÁĎA ŠOLC

In the place below the first ring-bolt, where Kristýnka complains in the video that she forgot to bring a sling for a horn, it is not worth falling. The first historical record of this route describes an attempt by Bohumil Sýkora, the author of the book Pískaři, who fell badly in 1953 at the spot below the first ring-bolt. (Later, he and Olga Gult did a first ascent of route “Ze Soutěsky” VIIIa on the same tower; author’s note).

Other locals were not interested, so the valley crack was first ascended by climbers from Český Ráj, Karel Cerman and Olda Kopal. They went to Adrspach, ended up in Teplice and started up the route… During the next visit they managed to finish the job. The first ring-bolts were placed by Karel Cerman according to the book Vysoká hra and the top one was hammered in by Olda Kopal. On the day of the first ascent, M. Šimůnek, Vlastimil Fulka and František Čepelka climbed the other end of the rope. It was 1956 and in time it was discovered that this group actually managed to make the oldest VIIIb in the Czech lands.

The aforementioned František Čepelka then set out on his own and with Rudolf Ziedler and scored the first and second repeats. Láďa Šolc, who climbed “Valley Route” eight times, officially became the route’s biggest fan. Mostly with partners, once with a note “belayed from below” in the summit and the last time alone: without a note about the belay method. Taking into account his excellent belaying skills and courage, one can speculate that he was the first to climb this crack in free solo style. Was it true? We’ll never know… Anyway, it is probably lucky that he did not make the first ascent, otherwise there would have been much less iron to clip along the crack.

HLÁSKA IN 8 MINUTES

One more note about how the same route gives different climbers different work. Apart from strength, technique and determination, morphology also matters a lot – those who have a thick knee and can’t fit into the crack can enjoy quite a long cramp.

For example, Seán Villanueva had to fight under the first ring. “And the slings didn’t look good to me.” He found the whole crack much harder than he expected. He was always trying to find a trick for each dimension, as the gap gradually changed a little… “I had a deep fist at first, but then it disappeared. I also didn’t know which way to climb out of the top cave. It’s still physically challenging in the chimney afterwards, but you become a human nut, so you know you won’t fall.” Seán climbed the route in 55 minutes…

In another rush, Jirka “Prťka” Koutský said, “I don’t remember the exact time, it was about ten or twelve minutes. I may have written it in the highlights. I climbed it in the style of a knee and a double hand-jam, that seemed the fastest to me. My other leg was heel-toe and I did the whole tempo on the double-hand-jam. By the top of the route I was crawling in. Tomas (Čada) and I were sparring to see who could do it faster.“

Tomáš Čada climbed Hláska three times – the first time with Radek Myška and Viktor Walzel in 1980, when Tomáš was 16 years old. The second time was with Gusta Havel two years later, and he did it in about 10 minutes. He was good with wide cracks at that time and this particular one suited him. “I climbed it pretty much outside and didn’t go inside. The more you climb it outside, the faster you are and the less you chafe. I used my knee in places.“

Tom’s fondest memory, however, is of his last climb on August 10, 1986, when he found himself in Teplice with a group of notable climbers: Milan Sýkora from West Germany (son of Bohumil Sýkora, author’s note), Czech Honza Ďoubal and Jörn Beilke from East Germany. “I was joking about the fact that all the top ten climbers were being sedated from the 6b crack. They were climbing on top of each other and it was like a kolkhoz.” Tomáš Čada recalls with the help of his diary and reads, “During this day I managed to climb the route in 8 minutes 18 seconds and 15 miliseconds.” Oh my! That would probably be the current world record.

KÁČA GAJDOVÁ RECALLS

I had this place on my 100% list of something I’ll never visit. (laughs) ‘One of the most beautiful towers, and I’ll never be there. It’s a shame,’ I thought.

Then the guys Stoupa (Dušan Janák) and Džony (Pavel Jonák) took me with them. Of course, I didn’t climb it cleanly. It was a struggle for me with the help of the tight rope… Nevertheless, I appreciate it on my climbing level, even though I wouldn’t describe it as “climbing”, but rather as “going up the tower”. (laughs) I did fit my knee in, but I found it terribly physically taxing. My lungs were bursting at the top. I was huffing and puffing and resting in that cave at the end of the crack… But by then I was happy because I knew I was going to get to the top. (laughs) It was a big thing for me. Džony made a short video of it at the time, which amused quite a few people, and I have a memory because of that.

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Thanks for all those who supported our editorial team during 2024. For the new year you can buy our new vignette/sticker. Happy climbing!

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